<!DOCTYPE html><html lang="en"><head>
        <meta charset="utf-8">
        <meta http-equiv="X-UA-Compatible" content="IE=edge">
        <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1.0">
        
        
        
        <link rel="shortcut icon" href="../../doc/web/favicon.ico">

<!--	<title>Meshing - MFEM</title>  -->
    <title>MFEM - Finite Element Discretization Library</title>

        <link href="../../doc/web/bootstrap-mfem.min.css" rel="stylesheet">
        <link href="../../doc/web/font-awesome-4.0.3.css" rel="stylesheet">
        <link rel="stylesheet" href="../../doc/web/highlight.css">
        <link href="../../doc/web/base.css" rel="stylesheet">

        <!-- HTML5 shim and Respond.js IE8 support of HTML5 elements and media queries -->
        <!--[if lt IE 9]>
            <script src="https://oss.maxcdn.com/libs/html5shiv/3.7.0/html5shiv.js"></script>
            <script src="https://oss.maxcdn.com/libs/respond.js/1.3.0/respond.min.js"></script>
        <![endif]-->

        
        <script async="" src="//www.google-analytics.com/analytics.js"></script><script>
            (function(i,s,o,g,r,a,m){i['GoogleAnalyticsObject']=r;i[r]=i[r]||function(){
            (i[r].q=i[r].q||[]).push(arguments)},i[r].l=1*new Date();a=s.createElement(o),
            m=s.getElementsByTagName(o)[0];a.async=1;a.src=g;m.parentNode.insertBefore(a,m)
            })(window,document,'script','//www.google-analytics.com/analytics.js','ga');

            ga('create', 'UA-101697-3', 'mfem.org');
            ga('send', 'pageview');
        </script>
        
    </head>

    <body style="">

        <div class="navbar navbar-default navbar-fixed-top" role="navigation">
    <div class="container">

        <!-- Collapsed navigation -->
        <div class="navbar-header">
            <!-- Expander button -->
            <button type="button" class="navbar-toggle" data-toggle="collapse" data-target=".navbar-collapse">
                <span class="sr-only">Toggle navigation</span>
                <span class="icon-bar"></span>
                <span class="icon-bar"></span>
                <span class="icon-bar"></span>
            </button>

            <!-- Main title -->
            <a class="navbar-brand" href="http://mfem.org">MFEM</a>
        </div>

        <!-- Expanded navigation -->
        <div class="navbar-collapse collapse">
            <!-- Main navigation -->
            <ul class="nav navbar-nav">
            
            
            
            
            
                <li>
                    <a href="http://mfem.org/features/">Features</a>
                </li>
            
            
            
            
            
                <li>
                    <a href="http://mfem.org/examples/">Examples</a>
                </li>
            
            
            
            
            
                <li class="dropdown active">
                    <a href="#" class="dropdown-toggle" data-toggle="dropdown">Documentation <b class="caret"></b></a>
                    <ul class="dropdown-menu">
                    
                        
                    
                        
                            <li>
                                 <a href="http://mfem.org/building/">Building MFEM</a>
                            </li>
                        
                    
                        
                            <li>
                                 <a href="http://mfem.org/serial-tutorial/">Serial Tutorial</a>
                            </li>
                        
                    
                        
                            <li>
                                 <a href="http://mfem.org/parallel-tutorial/">Parallel Tutorial</a>
                            </li>
                        
                    
                        
                            <li>
                                 <a href="http://mfem.org/fem/">Finite Elements</a>
                            </li>
                        
                    
                        
                    
                        
                    
                        
                            <li>
                                 <a href="http://mfem.org/electromagnetics/">Electromagnetics</a>
                            </li>
                        
                    
                        
                            <li class="active">
                                 <a href="./">Meshing</a>
                            </li>
                        
                    
                        
                    
                        
                            <li>
                                 <a href="http://mfem.org/performance/">Performance</a>
                            </li>
                        
                    
                        
                            <li>
                                 <a href="http://mfem.org/code-overview/">Code Overview</a>
                            </li>
                        
                    
                        
                            <li>
                                 <a href="http://mfem.org/publications/">Publications</a>
                            </li>
                        
                    
                        
                            <li>
                                 <a href="http://mfem.org/about/">About</a>
                            </li>
                        
                    
                    </ul>
                </li>
            
            
            
            
            
                <li>
                    <a href="http://mfem.org/gallery/">Gallery</a>
                </li>
            
            
            
            
            
                <li>
                    <a href="http://mfem.org/download/">Download</a>
                </li>
            
            
            
            </ul>

            <!-- Search, Navigation and Repo links -->
            <ul class="nav navbar-nav navbar-right">
                
                
                <li>
                    <a href="https://github.com/mfem/mfem">
                        
                            <i class="fa fa-github-square"></i>
                        
                        GitHub
                    </a>
                </li>
                
            </ul>
        </div>
    </div>
</div>

        <div class="container">
            
            <div class="col-md-3 visible-xs visible-sm"><div class="bs-sidebar hidden-print affix well" role="complementary">
    <ul class="nav bs-sidenav">
    
        <li class="main active"><a href="#meshing">Meshing</a></li>
        
            <li><a href="#mesh-formats">Mesh formats</a></li>
        
            <li><a href="#meshing-miniapps">Meshing miniapps</a></li>
        
    
    </ul>
</div></div> <!-- toc on top on mobile -->
            <div class="col-md-9" role="main">

<h1 id="meshing">Meshing</h1>
<p>This page provides a brief description of MFEM's mesh formats and meshing mini applications.</p>
<h2 id="mesh-formats">Mesh formats</h2>
<p>MFEM supports a number of mesh formats, including:</p>
<ul>
<li>MFEM's own <a href="http://mfem.org/mesh-formats/#mfem-mesh-v10">mesh v1.0 format</a>, which can describe both <a href="http://mfem.org/mesh-formats/#straight-meshes">straight</a> as well as <a href="http://mfem.org/mesh-formats/#curvilinear-and-more-general-meshes">arbitrary high-order curvilinear</a> and <a href="http://mfem.org/mesh-formats/#curvilinear-and-more-general-meshes">more general</a> meshes,</li>
<li>MFEM's own format for <a href="http://mfem.org/mesh-formats/#nurbs-meshes">NURBS</a> meshes,</li>
<li>The <a href="http://mfem.org/mesh-formats/#curvilinear-vtk-meshes">VTK</a> unstructured mesh format, for triangular, quadrilateral, tetrahedral and hexahedral meshes,</li>
<li>The <a href="http://gmsh.info/">Gmsh</a> ASCII and binary formats for 2D and 3D meshes.</li>
<li>The <a href="https://cubit.sandia.gov/">CUBIT</a> meshes through the Genesis (NetCDF) binary format.</li>
<li>The <a href="http://sourceforge.net/projects/netgen-mesher/">NETGEN</a> triangular and tetrahedral mesh formats,</li>
<li>The <a href="http://www.truegrid.com/">TrueGrid</a> hexahedral mesh format.</li>
</ul>
<p>Detailed description of these formats can be found on the <a href="http://mfem.org/mesh-formats/">mesh formats</a> page. These formats are also supported by MFEM's native visualization tool, <a href="http://glvis.org/">GLVis</a>.</p>
<h2 id="meshing-miniapps">Meshing miniapps</h2>
<p>The <code>miniapps/meshing</code> directory contains a collection of meshing-related miniapps based on MFEM.</p>
<p>Compared to the <a href="http://mfem.org/examples/">example codes</a>, the miniapps are more complex,
demonstrating more advanced usage of the library. They are intended to be more
representative of MFEM-based application codes. We recommend that new users
start with the example codes before moving to the miniapps.</p>
<p>The current meshing miniapps are described below.</p>
<h3 id="mobius-strip">Mobius Strip</h3>
<p>This miniapp generates various Mobius strip-like surface meshes. It is a good
way to generate complex surface meshes.</p>
<p><img alt="" src="../../doc/web/examples/mobius-strip.png"></p>
<p>Manipulating the mesh topology and
performing mesh transformation are demonstrated. The <code>mobius-strip</code> mesh in the
<code>data</code> directory was generated with this miniapp.</p>
<h3 id="klein-bottle">Klein Bottle</h3>
<p>This miniapp generates three types of Klein bottle surfaces. It is similar to
the mobius-strip miniapp.</p>
<p><img alt="" src="../../doc/web/examples/klein-bottle.png"></p>
<p>The <code>klein-bottle</code> and <code>klein-donut</code> meshes in the
<code>data</code> directory were generated with this miniapp.</p>
<h3 id="shaper">Shaper</h3>
<p>This miniapp performs multiple levels of adaptive mesh refinement to resolve the
interfaces between different "materials" in the mesh, as specified by a given
material() function.</p>
<p><img alt="" src="../../doc/web/examples/shaper.png"></p>
<p>It can be used as a simple initial mesh generator, for example in the case when
the interface is too complex to describe without local refinement. Both
conforming and non-conforming refinements are supported.</p>
<h3 id="mesh-explorer">Mesh Explorer</h3>
<p>This miniapp is a handy tool to examine, visualize and manipulate a given
mesh.</p>
<p><img alt="" src="../../doc/web/examples/mesh-explorer.png"></p>
<p>Some of its features are:</p>
<ul>
<li>visualizing of mesh materials and individual mesh elements</li>
<li>mesh scaling, randomization, and general transformation</li>
<li>manipulation of the mesh curvature</li>
<li>the ability to simulate parallel partitioning</li>
<li>quantitative and visual reports of mesh quality</li>
</ul></div>
            <div class="col-md-3 hidden-xs hidden-sm"><div class="bs-sidebar hidden-print affix well" role="complementary">
    <ul class="nav bs-sidenav">
    
        <li class="main active"><a href="#meshing">Meshing</a></li>
        
            <li><a href="#mesh-formats">Mesh formats</a></li>
        
            <li><a href="#meshing-miniapps">Meshing miniapps</a></li>
        
    
    </ul>
</div></div>

            
        </div>

        <footer class="footer">
           <div class="container">
              <p class="text-muted alignright">LLNL-WEB-676715</p>
              <p class="text-muted alignleft">
                  Developed by the <a href="/about/">MFEM team</a> at
                  <a href="http://computation.llnl.gov/casc/">CASC</a>,
                  <a href="https://www.llnl.gov/">LLNL</a></p>
           </div>
        </footer>

        <script src="../../doc/web/jquery-1.10.2.min.js"></script>
        <script src="../../doc/web/bootstrap-3.0.3.min.js"></script>
        <script src="../../doc/web/highlight.pack.js"></script>
        <script src="../../doc/web/base.js"></script>
        <script src="../../doc/web/retina.min.js"></script>
    

</body></html>
